Pix from Royal Chitwan NP

Chitwan National Park was pretty poor photographically speaking. For the duration of our stay (a whopping 2 nights) the place was shrouded in a horrible haze/fog. Typically, it started to clear up just as we were leaving


Pair of Ruddy Shelducks, there were masses of these along the Rapti River, and probably the fist 'genuine' ones i've ever seen. (The pair over the plains near Madrid last summer were a bit iffy if i'm honest with myself)











Awww, how cute is that

















Golden Jackal slinking through the grasslands
















The best bird in the park, Ibisbill. Probably the worst shot ever taken of one of these legendary birds













The Inidian Rhino wot charged us. This photo was taken with the 18-55mm lens. We had emerged out of the jungle onto the track where the Rhino is here, then ran back to the armed guards, to take this photo in relative safety. Apparently Rhino's have crappy eyesight so it probably couldnt see us there anyway, but it was certainly following us well enough as we crashed through the undergrowth with it in hot pursuit. A weird funny/scary experience and a somewhat dubious highlight of the trip





A monstrous pachyderm, and an elephant

Even more Jomsom pix

OK, heres the final set of pictures from Jomsom:

White-collared Blackbird at Taadapani, in the same tree as the Collared Grosbeaks in the earlier post.














Rufous-vented Tit
















Spotted Owlet in Pokhara, the night before the trek. We had just got to sleep when this thing started calling (more like yelping to be honest) outside the bedroom window. Anyone walking underneath the balcony would have had the amusing site of us bleary-eyed and only in our boxers, JP holding all the torches we had in the direction of the bird and me trying to balance the camera on the railings.











The mighty Thak Khola, rather empty in the dry season. Thanks to some duff directions from a geordie bloke, we found ourself on the wrong side of the river and had to wade across it, unsurprisingly, given that it comprises totally of fresh snow-melt, it was bloody freezing.








It's not often that I can make somebody else look short! Luckily this bloke didnt realise we were taking the piss cos i'm sure he could have properly decked me if he wanted, despite being vertically challenged.













White-browed Bush-robin, boring female















JP and a happy looking bloke at Kagbeni, to be fair he was probably in exile from Tibet so had an excuse to be miserable

















Maroon Oriole at Pokara

















Plumbeous Water-redstart














Spinning prayer-wheels at Marpha, didnt get me Grandala though did it, religion is such a load of bollocks, I mean, I pretended to be buddhist for a few days and I cant even see a few rares in treturn, rubbish








Female Red-headed Bullfinch















Annapurna sunrise













1st winter male Blue-capped Redstart














Nuff respect to anyone who manages to get up to pray at the Gompa at the top of that hill. Gompa is a nepali word for some religious praying thing, but it sounds like a good Somerset word of abuse, like numpty or pillock, I mighthave to start using that one.

"Oi, you gert gompa", yeh, has a nice ring to it













I just cant get enough of the landscape up there, even though these photos do them no justice at all.


















And finally one of JP looking shattered, the big jessie.
Sorry mate, it had to be done!!














Portland this morning was much more pleasant than recent days with the wind dropping off completely. It felt a bit more 'birdy' but a Dartford Warbler was the best we could manage down at the bill, plus a few singing Chiffchaffs, and an increase in the number of Stonechats. Even as i write this, theres a chiff calling in the garden, hopefully there'll be a few more interesting things starting to come through over the next week. Great-spooted Cuckoo is an absurd absentee of the portland list, and I fancy that this year is going to be the one that it finally falls, but then i've been saying that since I was 12 with no joy. To be perfectly honest i'll be overjoyed with a Hoopoe.

Premature return of Wanderlust

Thanks to the freezing and birdless Nor-westerlies that are ravaging Portland at the moment, i've got a terrible case of itchy feet, going through the trips pictures really doesn't help, so to try and cure me i'm going to write a list of all the stuff about India and travelling in general that I really am not missing now i'm home.

Everything being spicy, even Ketchup, what the hells that about!

Crappy/different beds: After leaving Goa, for the final 2 weeeks of th trip we spent every single night at a different hotel, thanks to the sheer number of sites we were trying to visit. It's exciting at first but soon gets to you, so it is quite nice to have spent a few consecutive days in my own cosy bed now.

Asiopop: I guess that whats its called, whatever, its total shit, and its blaring out of every single teashop, auto-rickshaw and bus in the whole bleeding contintent.

The smell: Anyone whos been to any vaguely urban part of Asia will understand this, it stinks, a less than salubrious mix of rotting or burning rubbish, human excrement and car fumes. Once I got back to Portland spent most of the afternoon stood up on the West Cliffs gulping in the fresh sea-breezes trying to cleanse my lungs (and failing to spot the first Sand Martin of the year of course!)

Buses: Nuff said. Stagecoach South-west, all is forgiven.

Being English: Well, being any nationalit other than Indian. Entrance fees for museums/forts/National Parks etc. are massively fixed to rip-off foreigners, usually something like 10rs for an Indian, and 250rs for a foreigner, plus extra charges if you want to take in a camera, or breathe during your visit. Ok, its still ridiculously cheap, but if your on a long trip it royally buggers you.

Insects: I decided to be 'ard and not bother taking Malaria Tabs (using the crappy new-age excuse of not liking to ingest artificial toxins into my body, rather than just admitting that i didnt want to cough up for them). So far it looks like i've gotten away with it, fingers crossed!

Lack of Real Ale: Kingfisher is a decent short-term substitute, but 2 months without a pint of Champion. Tribute or Broadside, i'm not sure how I managed!

Has that helped, has it bollocks!!
If the blog suddenly doesnt get updated for a couple of months, its cos i've got bored and buggered off somewhere more interesting.

More Jomsom trek pix

A few more pix from the epic Jomsom Trek

Jomsom Trek Photos

The worst thing about going on a long trip somewhere is sorting through all the photos taken, and I have absolutely thousands of them. I'll be slowly working my way throguh and posting them up here as I go, a few at a time, as and when I can be bothered.
I'll go in chronological order, so to start with, heres a few from the Jomsom Trek, way back in the first 2 weeks of January

Endgame

Well, thats it, all over, end of story!
Back home now (not quite for me, more on that later) after the most amazing 2 months abroad.
After the last update at the end of Gujarat we had an even quicker tour of Rajahstan. Udaipur was a prett interesting place, notably for lake pichola and the floating palace a featured in the James Bond film 'Octopussy'. Unfortunatly the palace is now a mega rip-off posh hotel and no longer inhabited by scores of scantily clad honeys, shame. After a night in Udaipur we caught a bus north-west to the Citadel of Jodphur. The main attraction of Jodhpur is a seriously impressive Fort perched on a rocky outcrop on the edge of town. It certainly lived up to expectations, a very National Trust stylee audio tour around the tour was a really good way of finally taking in some history and culture, seeign some fascinating architecture, beautiful paintings and some savage looking weaponry. I even managed to get in some more birding at this unlikely site, with White-rumped Vulture, Long-legged Buzzard and Brown Rock-chat being typical arid country birds.
In order to save time we took an overnight train to Jaisalmer, arriving at some disgustingly early hour we managed to find a hotel and spent the morning birding around the Gadi Sagar lake, this wa a really cool site with loads of temply things in and arond it and much appealingly, a huge area of scrubby semi desert. This provided a fair few of the hoped for birds, including Desert, Isabelline and Variable Wheatears, Chestnut-bellied Sandgrouse, Rufous-tailed Shrike, Desert and Orphean Warblers, Short-toed and Crested Larks.
The next morning we set out on a Camel safari to the west of Jaisalmer, in the area north-east of the Sam sand dunes. Starting off in the cool i was soon seeing good birds like Black-crowned Sparrowlark, Black-bellied Sandgrouse, Rufous-tialed Wheatear and Brown-necked Raven. Birding was pretty difficult from a moving camel and it was an uncomfortable ride so it was a bit of a relief to set- up camp in the late afternoon in a quiet section of dunes. It was quite an experence watching our dinner being cooked over an open fire, with the obligatory Kingfisher in hand (the beer, not a new tame species of desert halcyon) as the sun set behind the dunes with Southern-grey Shrikes and Desert Wheaters hopping around the camps. After a night under the stars we trekked slowly back to Jaislmer, picking up a stupendous array of raptors on the way, with Laggar Flacon, Indian Spotted Eagle and Imperial Eagle being the stars.
Aftar a final night in Jaisalmer we caught an ubsurdly long train (21 freekin hours!!!!) back to Delhi where we killed a few hours around the cities markets before catching our flight back to London via Qatar.
The expected thing to do after arriving back in London would have been to go home and sleep for the next week. However I had an interview in Dublin with Birdwatch Ireland this morning so had only afew hours at home to clean up before heading north to Brizzle airport for a flight to Dublin, arriving at my hostel at midnight and had my iterview at 10am today, not the best preparation you might agree, but I think it went alright, hopefully i'll be posting new don here in a few days of a new job in Ireland for the summer.

Photos from the whole trip to come sometime next week hopefully, once I can be arsed to go through them all, there is quite a few of them!!!

Around Gujarat in 5 days

Ok, so not quite up to the standards of Sir Michael of Palin but still some pretty mental travelling
After leaving Goa we arrived in Ahmedebad 24 hours later, via a 40 minute dash across Mumbai to a different train station, somehow avoiding the political riots as we went.
After arriving in Ahmedebad, cpaital of Gujarat we immediatley headed southwest to Sasan gir, pausing overnight in Junagadh. The obvious targets in Gir ereAsiatic lion and Leopard, our last chance of big cats in the country (Jungle Cat doesnt count). So, after our disappointment with tigers, di our luck change? Did it fuck!! Time and financial restraints meant we could only squeeze in one safari in the park itself and we fialed mmiserably. Some fresh prints and distant deer alarm calls being the closest we got. I reckon that there are no big cats in India, its all jsut a big con to lure in tourists, theyre just another asian myth, like yetis and straight politicians. Anyway, it wasnt a completely wasted trip. The guide assigned to us on our safari new his birds and the location of a Mottled Wood-owl roost site. Biridng aorund the buffer zone of the park was also fairly productive with a few new speices for the trip but nothing spectaular, one highlight was 5 wagtail species feeding together on a muddy riverbank.
I had a very close shave(literally) in Gir village just before leaving. While killing time waiting for our bus out, we decided to have a shave i na roadside barbers. While I was sat in the chair, JP decided to take a quick look outisde the shop, underestimated the height of the door frame and properly twatted his forehead on the frame. Obviously I found this highly amusing (as did all the vilalge kids who were watching the barbers first ever white customers) and broke into a fit of laughter, with the razor gliding over my throat. Luckily the barber was alert to the situation and pulled back before I could do myself a mischief.
Leaving GIR we spent a night in Jamnagar, before heading out to Dwarka, truly the seasdie town that they forgot to close down. It was quite an interesting town, wit hthe somewhat bizzare sight of a modern lighthouse postioned right next to most impressive 1000 year old Hindu temple. Hoever I didnt really give a shit about cultural bollocks like that and we went another 30kms north to the pretty industrial town of Okha. This journey was unddertaken in the most cramped shared jeep i've ever seen, JP was sat next to the driver with the gearstick wedged between his legs. His grimaces were getting worse as the driver shifted up through the gears, he was most relived that reverse wasnt called for at any point. On arrival at Okha we caught a cramped little boat (there appears to be theme developing here) out to Beyt Darka island, marched right past the temple and gathered pilgrims and holy men and out to the beaches on the North-east side of the island with one goal in mind. Our luck was in and the tide was out, leaving a hige expanse of shallow coral reef which was covered in feeding birds, including about 15 Crab Plovers, awesome birds, like soem hideously deformed Avocet. After getting good views of these crackers, we turned to head back to try and catch the last boat back to the mainland. As we were walking a large bird flew quickly overhead and I raised my bins to see the unmistakable silhouette of an Indian Skimmer!!! I had totally forgotten that these things are recorded occasionaly in the Gulf of Kutch, what an excellent surprise. We got the boat back at sunset, and watched holy men lobbing bread at Black and Brown-headed Gulls, only to be shat all over in return, it wa hard not to giggle at them too much.
The next day we had a quick look at the salt pans north of Dwarka and picked up loads of new species inlcuding Greater and Lesser Flamingos, Great-white Pelicans, assorted waders and wildfowl and quality raptors inlcuding Long-legged Buzzard and Booted Eagle. Frome Dwarka we went back to Jamnagar and then caught a surprisingly comfortable sleeper bus 13 hours north-east to Udaipur, where we are now. A quick looka round the lkae next to the town this morning revealed loads more new waterfowl and 4 showy Painted Snipe. We leave here tomorrow for Jodhpur, on the edge of the Thar sesert and from there out Jaislamer before flying out of Delhi a week today. Time has just disappeared and we've had to remove a few items from the schedule , i jsut dont know where it all went. Anyway, cant write any more, the power has just gone and i'm running on the last bit of battery, more later!!!

Goaing Forwoods

Still in Goa
I came back last night from a trip up to the legendary "Backwoods Birding Camp", in the foothills of the Wstern Ghats, about 50km inland from the beaches. Strictly speaking, i wasn't actually at Backwoods itself, but if i wrote that i had been to the Bhagwan Mahaveer Wildlife sanctuary, nobody would have a clue where it was, such is the stranglehold that Backwoods have on visiting birders.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, i didnt ant to stay with Backwoods, beacuase a) they're too expensive, and b) i prefer to find birds for myself.
So i got a bus from the coast up to the town of Ponda, which had the closest acommodation to BM WLS (there is a resort on the edge of the sanctuary, but some appaling timing by meant that i arrived at the weekend and it was all full).
The first afternoon i headed up to Bondla WLS, about 15 km from Ponda. It was too hot to bird effectively, but i still picked up some good stuff, notably Blue-capped Rock-thrush, Rusty-tailed Flycatcher and Lesser Adjutant.
The next morning, i took a bus up to Molem, and as suggested in "Kazmierczak and Singh", walked 2 km up the road to the old entrance to the sanctuary, near the 94km marker. Less than 100m down the track i picked up the target bird for the day, when a pair of Malabar Trogons flew in and landed on a branch overhanging the track, msot unexpected. Continuing east into the jungle i was soon picking up more specialities; Malabar Whistling Thrush, Moutain Imperial Pigeon, Heart-spotted Woodpecker, Red Spurfowl and Grey Junglefowl being the stars. I took the side track off South towards Sunset point, this went thorugh some excellent dense, damp forest and provided Indian Scimitar Babbler, Yellow-browed Bulbul and Large Woodshrike. As it was getting pretty damned hot and the birdlife was quietening down, i guessed that i wouldnt pick up much more and headed back towards the road. Walking through an unpromisig looking dry woodland with little undergrowth a smallish bird giving an unfamiliar call flew up from the gorund onto a low branch out in the open, bloddy Forest Wagtail, excellent. a superbly smart bird and very difficult to find in this area. A great way to finsih my stay in the area, so i headed back to Molem to catch a bus and return back to the beaches. But my luck was truly in, walking back down the main road, a stonking Crested Goshawk glided slowly over the road, at tree-top height, result.
That was it though, and within a couple of hours i was back in Baga, watching the usual Painted Snipe and Cinammon Bittern with beer in hand (my hand, not the birds) from the balcony of the Beira Mar hotel. Followed by another excellent meal from one of the many restaurants on the beach.
First thing this morning i took a taxi out to Saligao, and scored excellent views of a Brown Wood Owl roosting near the spring, then went up to Chapora for a good look at Heuglins, Caspian and Great-black headed gulls on the beach, along with a load of assorted terns.
We leave Goa tomorrow evening. We're not particualrly looking forward to 24hours worth of train up to Ahmedebad but its just one of those things thats got to be done. Soon though, we should be looking for Asiatic Lions, Onagers and Blackbucks in the plains of Gujarat, follow by camel safaris in the Great Thar Desert, the awesome desert forts of Rajahstani cities, masses of wetland birds at Harike, the golden temple at Amritsar, and then, in just 16 days time we'll be flying back to London, something that i'm really not looking forward too

Typos glaore

I've just read back thorugh the last post, and noticed that it's quite possible the worst bit of writing on the whole internet. Pretty much every sentance contains a typo error.
Contrary to popular belief, i'm not an illiterate fool (well, maybe a little bit of one) it's just that the keyboards here are rubbish, and dont let you type properly. And i really cant be arsed to go through and correct it all, so this post is will have to do to explain it.
Hopefully you're all gullible enough to believe that pathetic explantion, and i can carry on be dumbass who cant spell for the rest of trip.

Goa, Wahey!!!

Well, we finally made it to Goa, after a 15 hour overnight train to Bombay/Mumbai, and then a 12 hour daytime train to Goa from there. The day stopove in bombay was quite interesting. The city basically looks like London, with loads of Victorian style architecture, the only diffeence is that the piles of sht on the pavements anre slightly bigge in Bombay.
To put it quite simply, Goa fucking rocks, its my idea of heaven basically. i can ge up at dawn, spend a few hours birdingm, spend the middle of the day on the beach, bird for a few hours before dusk, and then stuff my face my face with quality cheap food and then down a load of kingfisher beers, also at ery reasonable cost, and then start over again the next day, pure bliss.
I've only doen that for one day so far though (we've only been here for one) and i'm afraid that the cheap beers may have an affect on the early morning birding. Though strangely i have been a proper insomniac this trip, waking up about half an hour before dawn every day, maybe its the excitement of birding in a new area.

In a simialr outline of the above, our first full day in Goa , having arrived late last night went something like this:

Out birding about half an hour before dawn, unsurprisingly, saw fuck all for the first half hour. From then the birds were smply queuing up. A walk up the coat path to Anjuna provided cracking Black-capped and Stork-billed Kingfishers, White-browed Bulbul, Pallid harrier, Blue Rock-thrush, Green Warbler and more. Came back for a breakfast (absurdly cheap).
Having spent the last 5 weeks living like total tramps, we decided to pamper ourselves. I opted for a ahircut and a porfessional wet shave from a barbers, while JP, much to my amusement, got his back waxed, the big tart. We spent the middle of the day burning on the beaches of Baga, my god it was hot out there, and bloody lovely. The sea was awesonme too, bathtub warm, a nice bit of surf and White-bellied Sea-Eagles, Osprey and Brahminy Kite fishing jsut a hundred metres out from the beach, ace!
Towards the end of the afternoon we settled for a beer at the Beira Mar hotel, which by some amazing coincidence, happened to look out over a rather god marshland, what luck!! We (or rather, I) soon got onto a male Painted Snipe hidden in the grass. After a while, it came out into the open and was joined by 3 more males and one stonking female, what a bird!!
A Chestnut-tailed Starling in the middle of a 300=strong flock of Rosy Starlings was another lifer, as was a beast of Clamorous Reed-Warbler, thrashign around the reeds just metres below the balcony. A Cinammon Bittern in the darkness in the pools below us rounded off the evening nicely and we headed to a restaraunt in town for a mungus Tuna Steak meal, with chips and veg, and a 650ml bottle of Kingfisher, all for jsut over 2 quid each, awesome!
and now, just lettign the meal go down nicely in an internet cafe before retiring to one of the pubs for more beer and to enjoy listening to some proper music. Oneof the best things about Goa is that the pubs actually play current English chart musci, which, when you've spent the last 5 weeks listening onyl to shite Asio-pop bollocks, is utter heaven.

Goa certainly isnt the real india, and bascially is just typical pacakge holiday junk, but we bloody love it, and after the squalor we've put up with for the whole of trip so far, i think we deserve it!!

Heading South

Well, we've blown our final chance for Tigers.
Aftre leaving Delhi we decided to head straight down to Ranthambhore NP, via a quick stop at Agra for brief views and record Happy Snaps of the Taj Mahal. We also passed through the legendary town of Bharatpur but thanks to another failed monsoon, the lack of water in the reserve meant it wasnt worth stopping at.
We arrived at Ranthambhore late at night after a 'complicated' journey from Delhi and managed to book on a safari the next evening.
Unfortunately we were allocated zone 5, which basically was total shit, and this combined with a bunch of typically noisy indians on our truck meant that we never really stood a chance. Still, i got good views of the parks 'key bird species' Painted Spurfowl, and we just spent the entire safari having a laugh at how excited the other english tourists were getting over dross like Spotted Deer.
Today we just wandered around the Acacia woodland bordering the park, whihc was very rewarding, with good views of Nilgai and Chowsingha. Chowsingha being a cool little antelope thing and Nilgai an awesome beast, something like a cross between a Giraffe, a Sambar deer and a Horse. We also picked up a few good birds including Barred Buttonquail, Ashy-crowned Sparrow-lark and Bay-backed Shrike, plus it was nice to be enjoying the sun and 30+ temperatures.
Anyway, got to go. We're catching an overnight train down to Mumbai in a few hours, where we'll stay for a day, and then head on down to Goa for a week or so of proper Package Holiday slobbishness and a few Western Ghats endemics. Ta-ra

Bollocks!

Bollocks!!!
Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks!!!

Despite 3 days of hard searching, we somehow failed to connect with Tigers at Corbett. What an absolute disaster. As Royal Bengal Tiger is the principal target species of the trip, it throws the rest of the itinery into question, as we simply have to see them. Current thinking is to spend a few days at Ranthambore NP, as it sounds like they have been fairly regular there. And if we do that at the end of the trip, then we cant inadvertently ruin the rest of the trip for ourselves by sacrificing too much time looking for them.
Aside from this obvious upset, our time in Corbett was very productive, with excellent views of some top quality mammals like Jungle Cat, Asian Elephant (wild). Golden Jackal, Wild Boar and 4 species of Deer, also some decent birds, with Hodgsons' Bushchat being the star (in terms of rarity), well backed up with Small Buttonquail, Brown Fish Owl, Pallas's and Lesser Fish Eagles, Himalayan Rubythroat and many more. Marsh Mugger and Gharial Crocodiles, along with some of the biggest freshwater fish i've ever seen provided even more interest. One of the highlights of the trip came from a dawn Elephant safari through the jungle and out into the grasslands, especially exciting as we could hear tigers roaring not that far away, alas not quite close enough.
Back in Ramnagar, a quick walk along the river this afternoon provided Long-billed Pipit, Bluethroat and Steppe Eagle, in some welcome hot temperatures to help us defrost from the freezing dawn and dusk safaris in Corbett.
One of the more amusing moments of our stay in the park came when JP realised that he had a problem controlling his language. During a stint in the Dhikala watchtower, a TGB (Thieving Gypsy Bastard) of a Rhesus Macacque mokey got a bit too close to an unattended packet of crisps, an eye-bulging scream of FUCK OFF!!!! soon sent it packing, but unfortunately also had the same effect on the very 'proper' American family who we were sharing the tower with. And you thought I was bad sometimes!!
Anyway, we're booked onto a train South from here (Ramnagar) tonight, getting off at the stinkhole that is Delhi early tomorrow morning, and then from there, well, it depends what trains are available, either out West to the Thar Desert, or down South to Gujarat and Goa, not certain yet.

Be sure to check back soon to find out just where the two Joes are off to next in the next exciting instalment of Joes Birding Blog!!
Dont know what the hell was about, just felt like pretending I was a TV presenter, the heat must be getting to me.

nepALL DONE

I'm writing this from an internet caff in Nainital, Northern India. I would rather be out birding but unfortunately a rather heavy blizzard has just started and we had to take cover.

Since the last update we've spent a few days at Royal Chitwan National Park, in southern Nepal, which were absolutely excellent.

After getting a posh tourist bus down to Narayanghat (stopping at the bus company's hotel en-route for all you can eat buffet lunch included with ticket, my god they regretted that, properly cleaned them out of noodles we did) we somehow managed to find a poxy little local bus down to the village of Meghauli. For this short journey we decided to sit on the roof of the bus, seemed like a fun idea at the time, 2 hours later we were scratched to hell from low hanging branches and bruised all over from a sightly bumpy ride. Somewhat shakily we made our way to Chital Lodge, a rather quiet place right on the edge of the National Park, where stayed for thre next 3 days/2 nights.
On our first full day we hired Jib, the owner for a visit deep into the jungle. Before we had even left the 'buffer zone' outside the park boundary, we scored with stunning close-up views of a massive Indian Rhino, we just hadnt reaisewd how big these things are, at about 30metres distance it was just huge, a real tank of a mammal. Stillbuzzing from this close encounter we headed into the park proper, wading through 2 rivers and catching a punted boat across another. We soon racked up plenty of decent birds including Great Hornbill, Black-backed Forktail, Speckled Piculet and Stork-billed Kingfisher to name but a few. Also some very fresh tiger pug prints in the sandy soil raised the heartbeat slightly. After a quick stop off at the exclusive Tiger Tops resort to "ooh and awww" at the baby elephants we headed back. Halfway back to meghauli we suddenly became aware of a load smashing sound nearby, Jib squealed "battling Rhinos, run!!!" and legged it down a side trail, needless to say, we decided that discretion was the bette part of valour and legged it after him, unfortunately, one of the rhino's, presumably the loser decided to come after us, we sprinted on back to the main path with several tons of hard, angry grey stuff close behind. On reaching the main path we took a turn towards the nearby checkpoint and its armed guards. Luckily, when the rhino emerged on the track soon after it only took a short stare at us, decided we werent weorth it and lumbered off into the jungle, phew!!! An incredibly scary moment but one hell of a rush at the same time!

The next day we just wandered around the buffer zone on our own for the morning , a wlak along the banks of a river we crossed the day before yielded a few pintail snipe, cinammon bittern, brown crake and a load of Hog Deer. Crossing over to the Rapti River we waded over to a large grassy island in the middle of the river. A quick scan of the opposite bank and i was onto a mid-sized greyish bird with a black crescent across the breast, it was sleeping, so i couldnt be sure, but if it was, boy was our luck in. Jib had told us he had seen one on the river a few weeks ago, but didnt expect it still be there. If only the bloody thing would wake up.
Soon enough a group of Golden Jackals appeared nearby, causing it to raise its head from under its wing, fucking IBISBILL, what a bird, and not expected at all at this site. it sat there for a few minutes showing of its downcurved reddish bill, like some murdering curlew, then went back to sleep, what a way to end the stay at Chitwan.

That afternoon we headed back to Narayanghat, and caught a bus for what would turn out to be the most hellish 12 hours of our lives, all the way over to Mahendranagar, on the Indian Border. my god, i have never been on such a shit bus, it was freezing cold from all the draughts, but this paled into insignificance against the bumpy ride, it had no suspension whatsoever and so jolted around all over the show, not helped by the appaling state of the roads. We were flipped around like rag dolls and bashed on the celing floor and seats in front, a night of utter hell. Still we made it on time (almost) and soon were on our way to the hill station here at Nainital.
I spent this morning birding around the town and nearby Snow View and Cheena Peak, picking up a few quality lifers including Rufous-backed Redstart, Spot-wiged Tit, Himalayan and Brown-fronted Woodpeckers, along with a load of other good mountain stuff.
If all goes plan we're catching a bus down to Ramnagar tomorrow, and from there heading into Corbett NP for tigers and avian goodies.

Oh, and i'm 3rd in the Surfbirds World Year Listing Rankings for 2008, cant see that lasting. Good luck to the current leaders Alan Davies and Ruth Miller in their attempt to break the world record, they're doing exceptionally well so far!

Back to life, back to reality

Wow, wot a mission that was.
We finally arrived back in Pokhara this morning after a mammoth few weeks up in the mountains, and what a trek it was. Since my last update, this is a basic review of what happened:

We got up at stupid o'clock to climb upto the famous Poon Hill, at 3200m to watch the sunrise over the Annapurna Massif, incredible views and only spoilt by the noisy rabble of chinese tourists, you would have thought that having gone to the trouble of illegally invading tibet and brutally occupying it for 60 years, they would have enough moutains of their own, anyway, this is a birding blog, and not a political views forum, so i'll stop before i say something that might be construed as racialist.

errm, yes, after the poon hill dawn we trekked down to Tatopani, an absolute bastard of a day that was, dropping about 1500m over the course of 6 bloody hothours, luckily Tatopani has an awersome natural Hot Spring, which for 25p provided an excellent warm muscle soother , as the air outside dropped to near freezing.
The next day we went back uphill to Ghasa where we stayed for 2 nights, partly for a rest day, and partly because the area holds some quality birds. On the "day off" I got up at 5 am and started climbing up to the Black Forest, about 1000m above ghasa, armed only with a puny LED headlamp. Somehow i managed to get to the top without tripping and fallin gback down to the bottom, and importantly scored with good views of a pair of Koklass Pheasant, several Hill Partridge, a load of Kalij Pheasant and an Upland Pipit, then back down near the village, i flushed a group of 3 Cheer Pheasant, result. After a long, totally knackering day i returned to the guest house to find JP totally relaxed having found time for a shave, shower and even a haircut, i hate birding sometimes.
anyway, after that we continued uphill over the next few days via Tuckche, a right dump, Marpha, the apple growing centre of the region, and the best bottle of cider i've ever had (high praise indeed from a Westcountry boy). Plenty of good birds here: Guldenstadts Redstart, Red-fronted Serin, Stoliczsa's Tit-warbler and Brown Accentor to name but a few. After that it was on to Kagbeni, and the border of the mystical Mustnag NP, we managed a very short and brief border crossing but didnt have the balls for a full scale excursion over, it might have been the threat of a Nepli prison that stopped us.
After Kagbeni it was up to the Pilgrimage village of Muktinath at 3800m, and some quite incredible landscapes (plenty of piccies to come). Some serious quality birds here: Solitary Snipe, Red-fronted and Great Rosefinch, Robin and Rufous-breasted Accentor etc.

The next day was yet again "the hardest day of the trip", and this time it will be diffilcult to beat. We left the Hotel at Dawn and spent the next 6 hours climbing up to the Throung La Pass, at 5416metres above sea level ,yes thats right 5416 metres, fucking high!
At about 4500m we both started suffering from Acute Mountain Sickness, a bit like a really bad hangover, banging headache, being very close to throwing up, and promosing never to do it again, still, we caried on, and were rewarded (well, i was) by a group of 5 Himalayan Snowcock on the path, incredibly followed soon after by about 15 Tibetan Snowcocks flushed around a corner, clealrly showing a huge white patch on the secondaries as buzzed down the valley.
After a few more gruelling hours we made it to the pass, what a feeling, aside fro msevere ligh-headedness, we were totally euphoric, as neither of us had seriously considered that we could make it, one of the greatest achievements that either of us has ever done.
After recovering quickly at the top and taking the obligatory ahppy-snaps we descended the 1600m back to muktinath, in jsut 3hours.
The next day we trekked down to Jomsom ,ready for a flight back to Pokhara the next day. If only things were that simple, the next morning, fierce winds cancalled all flights, and then unbelievably, also for the next 2 days. By the 3rd day we had lost patience so decided to take matters into our own hads, rather than risk losing more time to the weather, so yesterday morning we caught a jeep back down the incomplete road as far as Ghasa, the trekked like demons to tatopani in just 3 hours (a 5 hour walk apparently) form there we stumbled across a bus that had just dropped off a load of workers for the night shift on the road and persuaded them to take us back to Beni with them, where we stayed the night, before finally catching a crammed local bus back to Pokhara this morning. A most exciting way to come back down, and much more like real travel than the flight would be, and 25squid cheaper too.

Anyway, thats the last 2 weeks, what happens now then, well, tomorrow morning we're catching a bus to Royal Chitwan for a few days in the jungle ,they got fun and games there apparently (kid-listers, ask your parents).

Thats a very brief account, and I know i've not really detailed much of the bird sightings but it's all i can be arsed to do for the moment, i'll put it all in a proper trip report sometime.

Hopefully the next update will be full of tales of tigers, rhinos and elephants, and possibly even Ibisbill, if i can get over to Hetauda, and now its tiem to hit the bars of Pokhara and celebrate making it back to civilisation!!!

Crazy White Men

Wow, they have internet in the Himalayas, fair play.
Cant stay and write too much cos it costs a bomb, which is fair enough considering that some poor git had to carry the computer up here in the first place.
Basically, were knackered. The last few days have been spent trekking up to here at Ghorepani at 2970m, via Ghandruk and Taadapani, with the highest point being Derali at 3210m, by far the highest that either of us have ever been. Before coming here I thought that hiring porters was the preserve of the very rich and total jessies, but it seems that we are just about the only westerners carrying our own bags, no laughing matter when they're 25kg each. Andy Mcnab once wrote that you can only realistically carry a third of your own bodyweight for any length of time, now i'm no mathmetician but I only weigh 55kg, so i'm pushing that a bit, still, what does he know, silly twat got himself captured by a bunch of ragheads, anyway, I digress.
Birding has been pretty good so far, with such high altitude goodies as Pink-browed and Dark-breasted Rosefinches, Collared Grosbeaks, Red-headed Bullfinch, Red-flanked Bluetails, White-browed and Golden Bush-Robins and masses more, and we're not even in the best bit yey.
Tomorrow were heading north up the Kali Gandaki river to the hot springs at Tatopani, and from there slowly north again to Jomsom and muktinath, before flying back from Jomsom to Pokahara, and then down to the Jungles of Chitwan NP.
Well, must go, i need to save my cash for choclate, thats well dear too

I'm Alive

OK, first post of the trip to let the folks back home know i'm, ok.
We arrived in Delhi early on Thursday morning and caught a 14 hour sleeper train out to Gorakphur that evening. Frome there we caught a bus up to Sunauli on the Nepali border and then on to the town of Pokhara, where we arrived late last night. The journey was pretty uneventful, tedious and birdless, with Bank Mynah, Asian Openbill and Masked Wagtail being the only lifers.
Pokhara hoitself is looking very promising, the garden of our hotel held a nice 1st winter Brown Shrike and a few Brahminy Starlings this morning, with flyover Red-rumped Swallows against a backdrop of the Himalayas being an excellent site to wake up too.
A quick walk this afternoon around the woods on the western shore of Phewa Tal produced Grey-bellied Tesia (excellent view of this ping-pong ball on legs), Himalayan Griffon and Black Vultures, Plumbeous Water Redstarts, Velvet fronted Nuthatch, Maroon Oriole, Asian Barred Owlet and Kalij Pheasant among others.
Tomorrow morning we set off on the Jomsom/ Thak Khola trek, hopefully getting as far as the Thorung La Pass. This should be one of the highlights of the entire trip with stunning views across the highest mountain rangs in the world and hopefully somequality wildlife. I doubt there's any internet cafes on the trek so this blog will return to its dormant state for a few days.

World Year Listing

Seeing as how am hopefully getting a fair bit of travelling in this year, depending on how much work I can get in the summer of course, i've decided that I might as well have a crack at the sport of kings- World Year Listing.
The year didnt get off to a great start as the clock struck 12 while I was busy arranging cheesboards on my last day of work at the Orchid Restaraunt on Portland, where i've been working since finishing at the obs.
Still, I managed to haul myself out of bed at a fairly respectable hour this morning and racked up a few species around the island that might otherwise prove difficult to see this year, depending on my location for other winter months. The bill area itself was typically quiet but Portland Harbour scored with Long-tailed Duck, Black-throated and Great-Northern Divers and Red-necked Grebe, along with other wintering dross. The train journey north to my Mums house in Somerset added a few more species and I finished the day bang on 50 species, nothing spectacular about that but it was worth it for the couple of hours effort put in.

Highlight of the day however was a Redpoll sp South over Frome Railway Station, it's call just about audible over the recorded woman warning me that if I left my bag on the platform then Security Services would blow it up. Paranoid or what!!! I know it's got a big new ASDA's but Frome can hardly be high on Al Qaeda's strike list for the new year, there's so little stuff that even the local chavs cant be arsed trashing stuff anymore.

11 hours til I leave home, so excited!!!!